]]>By Lilia Callum-Penso | Greenville OnlineEllada Kouzina is one of the four food trucks participating in the first Lunchtime Pile-Up event, which is the city’s first regular gathering of food trucks.(Photo: PATRICK COLLARD/Staff)

As the city discusses possible changes to its food truck ordinance and whether to incorporate food trucks into city events, others are moving forward on their own to keep the mobile restaurants downtown.

Starting Wednesday, Euphoria will launch Lunchtime Pile-Up, a regular food-truck rodeo downtown. The weekly event is a lead-up to the premier food, wine and music event’s 10th year, organizers said, but it’s also a chance to help grow food truck culture in Greenville.

“When it comes to it, yes, we, Euphoria, are an event and that’s how we started,” said Brianna Shaw, executive director of Euphoria, “but just as the culinary scene is evolving here, we want to evolve with it. We want to be out there more, so we don’t feel like we’re a one-time shot supporting the culinary scene.”

For now, Lunchtime Pile-Up will take place each Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., but Shaw says that could change to twice a week if demand dictates. The location will be the corner lot at Falls and East Broad streets that’s leased by Table 301 Restaurant Group, which fully supports the food truck efforts.

“The cities that are booming and that really have good food truck industries have a rally or a roundup where there are a lot of trucks together,” said Carl Sobocinski, owner of Table 301. “So collaboration always seems to work best, and this is one of those things that continues to make Greenville cool.”

Food trucks have been struggling to gain a foothold in the city ever since the city passed its ordinance governing the mobile food vendors in the summer of 2013. A year and a half after the ordinance passed designating certain areas where food trucks could be downtown and setting guidelines on proximity to restaurants, food truck owners and operators said the restrictions had hurt their business downtown.

In January, City Council members met with the owners and operators to explore ways to make the situation better.

Some of the insight gleaned from the meeting was that food trucks need leeway to operate later hours, that they need access to other locations downtown, and that a rodeo, where multiple trucks could gather at one time, would be beneficial and draw people to the city.

Last month, City Council was still discussing options, said Kai Nelson, director of the city’s office of management and budget, which oversees food truck licensing. Some proposed changes were to allow food trucks to serve in the turnaround area at the Wyche Law Firm on Camperdown Way during lunch and dinner hours, versus only dinner and on weekends, and to allow for three trucks at a time.

Another proposal, Nelson said, was to extend serving hours to 2:30 p.m., to allow owners and operators more time to serve customers before having to clean and pack up their vehicles.

There had been little movement, though, on a city-backed rodeo.

But to Sobocinski, the time for a rodeo event is now.

“People’s mindsets now are let’s get out and go for a walk, and they’ll go a little bit farther for lunch right now,” Sobocinski said. “If you miss it in spring, then summer is fragmented and, sure, you can do some business, but right now you’ve got a tremendous amount of energy. It’s like if you’re going to open a restaurant, don’t do it at the slowest time of the year, open it at the busiest time.”

So far, a number of food trucks have signed up for the Pile-Up. Automatic Taco, one of the newest kids on the block, will be at all four in May. It was an easy decision, says owner Nick Thomas.

“You can have a food truck and go around to the office parks in Greenville and Spartanburg and make money, but I think a really important part is being involved in the community and being a part of the culture of Greenville,” Thomas said. “That progressive Greenville movement of food trucks and that progressive food scene, and being a part of that is vital.”

Thomas has already created some anticipation with stories about his innovative tacos. He brings a chef’s perspective to food truck food, paying careful attention to sourcing ingredients and to interplay between flavor and texture.

“It’s not your average taco,” Thomas assured.

Each Pile-Up event will include four trucks. The trucks pay $50 a week, or $150 for an entire month to participate. The funds will go directly to Euphoria’s grants fund, which is funneled to the organization’s non-profit partners.

“We heard the city was going to do a rodeo, and then we were like, well, we still want to do it,” Shaw said of starting the food truck event. “What’s the worst-case scenario? That there’s two.

“And I think sometimes we can probably do things faster.”

Lunchtime Pile Up will run through October.

Seating is available at the Soby’s patio, at the Peace Center plaza and in front of City Hall.

Food trucks are really hot right now. Festivals in the streets of downtown Dallas usually have two are three areas with food trucks lined up. Even Klyde Warren Park has a regular line up of food trucks. Tucked away on Lower Greenville is another food truck hot spot called The Truck Yard.

Before you hit up Trader Joe’s, head over to the Truck Yard for a bite to eat from the food trucks! There is also a beer garden, backyard furniture, an air stream bar with 24 beers on tap, and a tree house just for adults!

Their website keeps a monthly calendar of the food trucks hanging around the Truck Yard. This month, you can find Julie’s favorite Nammi Truck as well as BSG, Cajun Tailgators, Easy Slider, Taco Party, Woke, and many more!

The Truck Yard is located at 5624 Sears St, just off Lower Greenville in Dallas. They are open Sunday through Saturday from 11AM to midnight. Food trucks roll in for lunch from 11AM to 2PM and dinner from 6PM to 9PM. You can find more information attexastruckyard.com.

A “food truck trailer park” planned for Lower Greenville will start construction late this summer.

The project – doubted by some when it was first announced in November 2010 – is nearly ready to break ground. Headed by Madison Partners, Jonathon Hetzel and his team have secured the appropriate city permits and are currently picking chefs to join the trailer park.

The concept of Arcadia Food Park, as it’s called, is to place six trailers on concrete pads in the location of the old Arcadia Theater, which was destroyed in a fire in 2006. Most of the trailers will look like retro silver Airstreams, though variations like Winnebagos will be allowed as long as they are “cool, old, funky trailers converted into take-out restaurants,” Hetzel said.

He wouldn’t yet name the six restaurateurs picked for the site, except to say that Jason Boso of Twisted Root and Cowboy Chow (which just closed its Deep Ellum location) will have a trailer. There will also be a beer/wine trailer, tentatively designed as a Winnebago with taps coming out of the side of the truck.

All chefs will be picked by the development team, and their trailers will have to be approved so they fit the theme. “They have to be doing something unique and cool,” Hetzel said. “I’m not going to put a trailer in there that sells run-of-the-mill burgers or run-of-the-mill hot dogs. Once the glitz wears off, we need to have something, an offering, that will keep people coming back.”

Chefs will pay to lease on the plot of land on which their trailer is parked. The trailers will be there semi-permanently: They will be bolted to the ground and will only be moved if a chef decides to pull out of the project. Even if that happens, Hetzel imagines that the trailer might be sold to the next chef as opposed to moved off the lot. The development company was able to secure building permits for the trailers since they are bolted down and considered to be “buildings” – which sped up the process since Dallas is still amending their food truck ordinance.

Arcadia Food Park will have parking for about 60 cars, a common bathroom building, a kids playground, dog park, and a neon sign art park. “We’re going to get a bunch of cool, old ’40s and ’50s signs; we found a neon sign boneyard,” Hetzel said. “We’re going to put them up on poles and scatter them throughout the place to give it a cool, funky, retro trailer park feel.”

There will be seating for 150 to 200 people in an outdoor space of 6,300 square feet.

So what makes this different than a recycled Austin food truck park? “For better or worse, we’ll be masterminding this better than they do in Austin,” Hetzel said. “And the people who say it’s not organically grown, it is! We had a site on Lower Greenville where the Arcadia Theater used to be, and it burned down … we came up with this cool project … we got together a bunch of local talent – not national talent – to put trailers in there and offer unique products.”

Construction will begin in August at the latest, Hetzel said. He hopes to open the doors – or, more fittingly, windows – by early 2012.